How a National Culture of Academic Over-Competition Destroys Their Youth

This is such a sad story:

“When I asked a class if they were happy in this environment, one girl hesitantly raised her hand to tell me that she would only be happy if her mother was gone because all her mother knew was how to nag about her academic performance.

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Herded to various educational outlets and programs by parents, the average South Korean student works up to 13 hours a day, while the average high school student sleeps only 5.5 hours a night to ensure there is sufficient time for studying.

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Many young South Koreans suffer physical symptoms of academic stress, like my brother did. In a typical case, one friend reported losing clumps of hair as she focused on her studies in high school; her hair regrew only when she entered college.

Students are also inclined to see academic performance as their only source of validation and self-worth. Among young South Koreans who confessed to feeling suicidal in 2010, an alarming 53 percent identified inadequate academic performance as the main reason for such thoughts.

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But above all, the conviction that academic success is paramount in life needs to be set aside completely. South Korea may have become an enviable economic superpower, but it has neglected the happiness of its people.”

That is just child abuse. The American education system may be swung a bit much towards sports/creativity/“emotional development” at the expense of academic development, but swinging to the other side is just as harmful.

But with being rich being a significant factor to achieving any social mobility in the current era of ever increasing economic iequality, the drive to keep pushing to be on top will always be there. But it seems that the Americans are doing better than Asians in coping with the pressures (maybe because there's an impression that the American millennials are completely oblivious to the high stakes nature of the modern workplace while kids are given certificates just for participating in something without proper achievement).

I think that we have a bit of both extremes among our own people, but it’s certainly more in the middle. Hence we produce people who can’t really talk confidently yet can’t memorize word by word their textbook and still suck in sports (except in online keyboard warrior arguments). 

Apple's Recent Education Envent

It was interesting watching the recent-most Apple keynote event, and for me it wasn't about necessarily about the products (hardware and software) announced. Instead the event highlighted what I said before about the focus of American education: maximizing participation and engagement. During my easily distracted time mostly listening to the event, never did they stress increasing test scores as a completely objective measure of success among the schoolchildren as part of their salespitch. This is in comparison to the annual publication of list of schools with the best SPM results and source of bragging rights. American educations looks to be very focused on the process while ours is heavily results based (and influenced by our British ex-colonizers). I guess both are needed: a good process ensures that education is fun and doesn't skip steps in creating a human. Having a bit of a results-oriented mindset gives a nudge to compete and give a bit more effort, but not to the point of kids committing suicide from "poor" results. Nevertheless, with the economy as it is, I don't see the competitive mindset cooling down anytime in the current generation of generally East/Southeast Asian schoolchildren.

Do spend your time watching it.

On the Differences Between American Education and The Rest

From the Economist:

“At the heart of the problem is an educational ethos that prizes building self-esteem over academic attainment. This is based on a theory that self-confidence leads to all manner of other virtues, including academic achievement, because children who feel good about themselves will love learning – right?”

I'm not sure if our education system prioritizes creativity, self-esteem and sports as much as other developed countries (other than the States), but there are downsides to America's fascination with those fields by sacrificing the "sciences": 

“According to the OECD’s latest international education rankings, American children are rated average at reading, below average at science, and poor at maths, at which they rank 27th out of 34 developed countries. At 15, children in Massachusetts, where education standards are higher than in most states, are so far behind their counterparts in Shanghai at maths that it would take them more than two years of regular education to catch up.”

And:

“In a study of eight countries, American children came top at thinking they were good at maths, but bottom at maths. For Korean children, the inverse was true: they considered themselves poorer at maths than the children of any other country, but were the best. The OECD study, similarly, found that American children believe they are good at maths and, indeed, are adept at very simple sums; but give them something halfway tricky and they struggle.”

I'm pretty sure that education everywhere evolves in their own pace and direction, but in Malaysia (at least back then) the system wasn't too good either. In the States I learned basic skeletal anatomy in 3rd grade and world history in 6th grade, stuff that wasn't taught in the Malaysian education system until at least years later (world history was what, Form 5?). And there was much more creative/arts education there, compared with the "churning out results" nature of East and Southeastern Asian education. And let's not talk about sports; it's like a night and day difference.

But hey, in spite of their so-called flawed school education system, they have the highest rate of scientific innovations right? You could argue that it's partly from immigration, but hey you should get my point.

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